In the Slums of Mumbai

Del, our Creative Director recently took his camera and went to India to record the work of Vision Rescue in Mumbai. Here are his words on some highlights from the trip.

Del, our Creative Director recently took his camera and went to India to record the work of Vision Rescue in Mumbai. Here are his words on some highlights from the trip.

I first went to see the work of Vision Rescue in Mumbai in 2013. They are an incredible organisation started 11 years ago by Biju Thampy when he saw kids starving on the street and felt compelled to do something. Now they have offices in Mumbai, Calcutta and Chennai – working in the slums ‘giving people a hand-up and not a hand-out’.

It’s crucial to make the content as engaging as possible and rich storytelling is more important than ever.

Their work is community based with centres in the heart of slums providing education and training to adults and kids and with mobile ‘bus classrooms’, dental and medical vans providing mobile care and education for kids, adults and addicts across Mumbai. They also run a ‘transition home’ providing rehabilitation for girls over 18 who have been freed from sex trafficking and are soon to open a ‘Dream Centre’ for girls under 16 and which will accommodate 96 girls when at full capacity.

I travelled with a team of doctors and nurses from Greenlight who are a Hillsong Church UK charity who provide mobile healthcare to the homeless in London. Highlights of the week were seeing the new community centres operate. One was running a ‘health camp’ where the Greenlight team observed and advised local doctors and nurses in action as they gave help to 412 people in just two days. We visited another centre in the heart of one of the most difficult slums where women from the slum were learning tailoring and henna art so they could earn money and support their family.

In my visit in 2013 I started working with the charity to improve their brand and messaging which lead to a new website launching with the help of volunteers. I’ve since joined the charities’ UK board, with a focus on applying some of Collider’s strategic and creative skills to raise funds to help the people living in these slums live with dignity.

It was an amazing trip, made even better by having my 16 year old daughter Lily join me with her camera too. Her photos have been picked up and reposted by numerous Mumbai focused Instagram accounts. Her pictures are incredible and I’m immensely proud of her. You can view the full album of photos from our trip here.

If you’d like to find out more about Vision Rescue, feel free to join their Facebook and Instagram communities.

Words by Collider

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